Hi Everyone.Apologies for the wall of text. There's alot.Background - I am her pseudo-stepdad. I live with my girlfriend and her 8 year old daughter. My girlfriend and the daughter's dad split about a year and a half ago. The daughter still sees her dad. Girlfriend is also 3 months pregnant. Earlier(few months ago) we had decided that I should be included in the discipline, that is now void. After a longReally unsure of what to do. We feel like we've tried everything and have gotten nowhere. Nearly all of the issues we are having with her revolve around carelessness and not listening. I'll throw out a few examples.A - Homework would typically consist of 1-2 simple math sheets of relevant(things she was doing in class) work. This was her only homework as she would complete her other work in class. After a lot of fighting and crying (spending 3-4 hours PER NIGHT) literally screaming and crying that she doesn't know how to do it, her mom had decided to eliminate the homework. Her teacher had moved onto mental math, and had instructed us to ask her a few questions everyday that she is supposed to do in her head. Same cycle, screaming/crying and ruining evenings, her mom decided that we are no longer doing that.B - She's been asked and told repeatedly to not wake us up unless its an emergency. She has a habit of getting up early (6-7am or earlier, no matter when she goes to bed). The other day she was crawling around everyone, trying to wake us up to tell us she's bored and can't sleep. I was very annoyed. 1000's of dollars in things to do and new christmas toys and you're bored? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?Girlfriend was more upset with the fact that she could have fallen or one of us could have moved and knocked her over into one of us (or her stomach, or in future, the baby possibly laying in bed with us). This isn't the first time this has happened, 3 days prior went to go on the bed when I was sleeping and landed right on my knee. She always says shes sorry and that she wont do it again, but it always happens again. No punishment was given.C - Didn't want to eat the raisins out of her breakfast. Threw them on the floor and left them there until I pointed them out. Conversation goes as follows -Me - Did you throw those raisins on the floor on accident or on purpose? Her - On purpose Me - So you just left them there for me or your mom to clean up? Her - Yeah Me - OkHer tone implied she knew she was in trouble and knew she had done something wrong. I had to go back to work so I just left. Her punishment is sweeping and washing the floors everyday for a week.D - She is recovering from a cold of some kind, but still a little on the sick side. While watching a movie the other night, I had asked her to not put her hands in her mouth and then touch other peoples things. First time, was her moms water bottle(the reusable kind with the pop top thing). Asked her to go wash her hands and paused the movie. 5 seconds after she came back she is putting her hands in her mouth and playing with a book that's on the floor. Paused the movie, sent her to wash her hands. Came back again, few minutes later she is literally holding her tongue with her fingers. Paused the movie, sent her to wash her hands.Didn't unpause the movie and point blank asked her "why don't you listen. whats up". Anytime someone asks her that or something like it, the only response she comes up with is "I don't know" and starts crying and getting upset.E - Before we quit homework, made a deal with her. For every half hour she spends on her tablet, she can do 1 page of homework. This was agreed to by both parties. After 2 hours on her tablet and during lunch I told her she had 4 pages of homework to do. Cue the cryfest for the next 5 hours/remainder of Saturday.F - Constantly jumping around on furniture. While yes I know kids will do this sometimes, being asked and told repeatedly that she needs to calm down and the couch/her bed is not a jungle gym, she broke her bed. No punishment was given.G - Running around at family events being told repeatedly to calm down and just doing whatever she wants anyway.We've tried -Setting up a points system(sorting and matching socks - 10 points, etc). When she does something, she owes us X amount of points and has to earn them back. When she isn't in the negative, the points convert to money which she can earn to buy things. She ignored the chart for the most part unless she was in the red, wasn't interested in money and never did anything extra.Star systems. Have all her daily tasks listed out on a calendar. She gets a star for completing each one without being asked (brush teeth/hair/get dressed/daily chore, etc). At the end of the week based on the amount of stars, we do something fun as a family.Super strict. This was my idea. Every mistake was dealt with swiftly and without any argument. No second chances because this should be second nature. Too busy playing with toys in the morning to brush your teeth? Toy taken away. Repeated outbursts of crying and hysterics for no reason? More toys taken away. Attitude? Go to bed early. Even more attitude? Go to bed early without a bedtime snack. Insist that you're too stupid to do homework and cry for 3 hours? Add homework. At one point it got so bad that we literally had 4 giant totes of various toys locked up in the closet, and her behavior didn't improve.We have started to say she is just her and she will do whatever she wants whenever she wants it. Whenever something happens, it's a cry fest for 30 or 40 seconds, she says she will do better, she promises etc etc, nothing ever really changes, except our frustration level.We are frustrated. We are tired. We have another one on the way. We need help.Thanks in advance. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2ihVz2n
No comments:
Post a Comment